Filling a gap in the literature for a brief course in solid state physics, this is a clear and concise introduction that not only describes all the basic phenomena and concepts, but also discusses such advanced issues as magnetism and superconductivity. This textbook assumes only basic mathematical knowledge on the part of the reader and includes more than 100 discussion questions and some 70 problems, with solutions as well as further supplementary material available free to lecturers from the Wiley-VCH website.